I Am That

I AM THAT
Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Table of Contents
Foreword
Who is Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj?
Translator’s Note
Editor’s Note
1. The Sense of ‘I am’
2. Obsession with the body
3. The Living Present
4. Real World is Beyond the Mind
5. What is Born must Die
6. Meditation
7. The Mind
8. The Self Stands Beyond Mind
9. Responses of Memory
10. Witnessing
11. Awareness and Consciousness
12. The Person is not Reality
13. The Supreme, the Mind and the Body
14. Appearances and the Reality
15. The Jnani
16. Desirelessness, the Highest Bliss
17. The Ever-Present
18. To Know What you Are, Find What you Are Not
19. Reality lies in Objectivity
20. The Supreme is Beyond All
21. Who am I?
22. Life is Love and Love is Life
23. Discrimination leads to Detachment
24. God is the All-doer, the Jnani a Non-doer
25. Hold on to ‘I am’
26. Personality, an Obstacle
27. The Beginningless Begins Forever
28. All Suffering is Born of Desire
29. Living is Life’s only Purpose
30. You are Free NOW
31. Do not Undervalue Attention
32. Life is the Supreme Guru
33. Everything Happens by Itself
34. Mind is restlessness Itself
35. Greatest Guru is Your Inner Self
36. Killing Hurts the Killer, not the Killed
37. Beyond Pain and Pleasure there is Bliss
38. Spiritual Practice is Will Asserted and Re-asserted
39. By Itself Nothing has Existence
40. Only the Self is Real
41. Develop the Witness Attitude
42. Reality cannot be Expressed
43. Ignorance can be Recognised, not Jnana
44. 'I am' is True, all else is Inference
45. What Comes and Goes has no Being
46. Awareness of Being is Bliss
47. Watch Your Mind
48. Awareness is Free
49. Mind Causes Insecurity
50. Self-awareness is the Witness
51. Be Indifferent to Pain and Pleasure
52. Being Happy, Making Happy is the Rhythm of Life
53. Desires Fulfilled, Breed More Desires
54. Body and Mind are Symptoms of Ignorance
55. Give up All and You Gain All
56. Consciousness Arising, World Arises
57. Beyond Mind there is no Suffering
58. Perfection, Destiny of All
59. Desire and Fear: Self-centred States
60. Live Facts, not Fancies
61. Matter is Consciousness Itself
62. In the Supreme the Witness Appears
63. Notion of Doership is Bondage
64. Whatever pleases you, Keeps you Back
65. A Quiet Mind is All You Need
66. All Search for Happiness is Misery
67. Experience is not the Real Thing
68. Seek the Source of Consciousness
69. Transiency is Proof of Unreality
70. God is the End of All Desire and Knowledge
71. In Self-awareness you Learn about Yourself
72. What is Pure, Unalloyed, Unattached is Real
73. Death of the Mind is Birth of Wisdom
74. Truth is Here and Now
75. In Peace and Silence you Grow
76. To Know that You do not Know, is True Knowledge
77. 'I' and 'Mine' are False Ideas
78. All Knowledge is Ignorance
79. Person, Witness and the Supreme
80. Awareness
81. Root Cause of Fear
82. Absolute Perfection is Here and Now
83. The True Guru
84. Your Goal is Your Guru
85. ‘I am’: The Foundation of all Experience
86. The Unknown is the Home of the Real
87. Keep the Mind Silent and You shall Discover
88. Knowledge by the Mind, is not True Knowledge
89. Progress in Spiritual Life
90. Surrender to Your Own Self
91. Pleasure and Happiness
92. Go Beyond the l-am-the-body Idea
93. Man is not the Doer
94. You are Beyond Space and Time
95. Accept Life as it Comes
96. Abandon Memories and Expectations
97. Mind and the World are not Separate
98. Freedom from Self-identification
99. The Perceived cannot be the Perceiver
100. Understanding leads to Freedom
101. Jnani does not Grasp, nor Hold
Appendix-1: Who is Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
Appendix-2: Navnath Sampradaya

That in whom reside all beings and who resides in all beings,
who is the giver of grace to all, the Supreme Soul of the
universe, the limitless being -- I am that.
Amritbindu Upanishad

That which permeates all, which nothing transcends and which,
like the universal space around us, fills everything completely
from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman -- that
thou art.
Sankaracharya

The seeker is he who is in search of himself.
Give up all questions except one: ‘Who am I?’ After all, the
only fact you are sure of is that you are. The ‘I am’ is
certain. The ‘I am this’ is not. Struggle to find out what you
are in reality.
To know what you are, you must first investigate and know what
you are not.
Discover all that you are not -- body, feelings thoughts, time,
space, this or that -- nothing, concrete or abstract, which you
perceive can be you. The very act of perceiving shows that you
are not what you perceive.
The clearer you understand on the level of mind you can be
described in negative terms only, the quicker will you come to
the end of your search and realise that you are the limitless
being.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Foreword

That there should be yet another addition of I AM THAT is not
surprising, for the sublimity of the words spoken by Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj, their directness and the lucidity with
which they refer to the Highest have already made this book a
literature of paramount importance. In fact, many regard it as
the only book of spiritual teaching really worth studying.

There are various religions and systems of philosophy which
claim to endow human life with meaning. But they suffer from
certain inherent limitations. They couch into fine-sounding
words their traditional beliefs and ideologies, theological or
philosophical. Believers, however, discover the limited range of
meaning and applicability of these words, sooner or later. They
get disillusioned and tend to abandon the systems, in the same
way as scientific theories are abandoned, when they are called
in question by too much contradictory empirical data.

When a system of spiritual interpretation turns out to be
unconvincing and not capable of being rationally justified, many
people allow themselves to be converted to some other system.
After a while, however, they find limitations and contradictions
in the other system also. In this unrewarding pursuit of
acceptance and rejection what remains for them is only
scepticism and agnosticism, leading to a fatuous way of living,
engrossed in mere gross utilities of life, just consuming
material goods. Sometimes, however, though rarely, scepticism
gives rise to an intuition of a basic reality, more fundamental
than that of words, religions or philosophic systems. Strangely,
it is a positive aspect of scepticism. It was in such a state of
scepticism, but also having an intuition of the basic reality,
that I happened to read Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj’s I AM THAT. I
was at once struck by the finality and unassailable certitude of
his words. Limited by their very nature though words are, I
found the utterances of Maharaj transparent, polished windows,
as it were.

No book of spiritual teachings, however, can replace the
presence of the teacher himself. Only the words spoken directly
to you by the Guru shed their opacity completely. In a Guru’s
presence the last boundaries drawn by the mind vanish. Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj is indeed such a Guru. He is not a
preacher, but he provides precisely those indications which the
seeker needs. The reality which emanates from him is inalienable
and Absolute. It is authentic. Having experienced the verity of
his words in the pages of I AM THAT, and being inspired by it,
many from the West have found their way to Maharaj to seek
enlightenment.

Maharaj’s interpretation of truth is not different from that of
Jnana Yoga/Advaita Vedanta. But, he has a way of his own. The
multifarious forms around us, says he, are constituted of the
five elements. They are transient, and in a state of perpetual
flux. Also they are governed by the law of causation. All this
applies to the body and the mind also, both of which are
transient and subject to birth and death. We know that only by
means of the bodily senses and the mind can the world be known.
As in the Kantian view, it is a correlate of the human knowing
subject, and, therefore, has the fundamental structure of our
way of knowing. This means that time, space and causality are
not ‘objective’, or extraneous entities, but mental categories
in which everything is moulded. The existence and form of all
things depend upon the mind. Cognition is a mental product. And
the world as seen from the mind is a subjective and private
world, which changes continuously in accordance with the
restlessness of the mind itself.

In opposition to the restless mind, with its limited categories
-- intentionality, subjectivity, duality etc. -- stands supreme
the limitless sense of ‘I am’. The only thing I can be sure
about is that ‘I am’; not as a thinking ‘I am’ in the Cartesian
sense, but without any predicates. Again and again Maharaj draws
our attention to this basic fact in order to make us realise our
‘I am-ness’ and thus get rid of all self-made prisons. He says:
The only true statement is ‘I am’. All else is mere inference.
By no effort can you change the ‘I am’ into ‘I am-not’.

Behold, the real experiencer is not the mind, but myself, the
light in which everything appears. Self is the common factor at
the root of all experience, the awareness in which everything
happens. The entire field of consciousness is only as a film, or
a speck, in ‘I am’. This ‘I am-ness’ is, being conscious of
consciousness, being aware of itself. And it is indescribable,
because it has no attributes. It is only being myself, and being
myself is all that there is. Everything that exists, exists as
myself. There is nothing which is different from me. There is no
duality and, therefore, no pain. There are no problems. It is
the sphere of love, in which everything is perfect. What
happens, happens spontaneously, without intentions -- like
digestion, or the growth of the hair. Realise this, and be free
from the limitations of the mind.

Behold, the deep sleep in which there is no notion of being this
or that. Yet ‘I am’ remains. And behold the eternal now. Memory
seems to being things to the present out of the past, but all
that happens does happen in the present only. It is only in the
timeless now that phenomena manifest themselves. Thus, time and
causality do not apply in reality. I am prior to the world, body
and mind. I am the sphere in which they appear and disappear. I
am the source of them all, the universal power by which the
world with its bewildering diversity becomes manifest.

In spite of its primevality, however, the sense of ‘I am’ is not
the Highest. It is not the Absolute. The sense, or taste of ‘I
am-ness’ is not absolutely beyond time. Being the essence of the
five elements, it, in a way, depends upon the world. It arises
from the body, which, in its turn, is built by food, consisting
of the elements. It disappears when the body dies, like the
spark extinguishes when the incense stick burns out. When pure
awareness is attained, no need exists any more, not even for ‘I
am’, which is but a useful pointer, a direction-indicator
towards the Absolute. The awareness ‘I am’ then easily ceases.
What prevails is that which cannot be described, that which is
beyond words. It is this ‘state’ which is most real, a state of
pure potentiality, which is prior to everything. The ‘I am’ and
the universe are mere reflections of it. It is this reality
which a jnani has realised.

The best that you can do is listen attentively to the jnani --
of whom Sri Nisargadatta is a living example -- and to trust and
believe him. By such listening you will realise that his reality
is your reality. He helps you in seeing the nature of the world
and of the ‘I am’. He urges you to study the workings of the
body and the mind with solemn and intense concentration, to
recognise that you are neither of them and to cast them off. He
suggests that you return again and again to ‘I am’ until it is
your only abode, outside of which nothing exists; until the ego
as a limitation of ‘I am’, has disappeared. It is then that the
highest realisation will just happen effortlessly.

Mark the words of the jnani, which cut across all concepts and
dogmas. Maharaj says: “until once becomes self-realised, attains
to knowledge of the self, transcends the self, until then, all
these cock-and-bull stories are provided, all these concepts.”
Yes, they are concepts, even ‘I am’ is, but surely there are no
concepts more precious. It is for the seeker to regard them with
the utmost
seriousness, because they indicate the Highest Reality. No
better concepts are available to shed all concepts.

I am thankful to Sudhakar S. Dikshit, the editor, for inviting
me to write the Foreword to this new edition of I AM THAT and
thus giving me an opportunity to pay my homage to Sri
Nisargadatta Maharaj, who has expounded highest knowledge in the
simplest, clearest and the most convincing words.

When asked about the date of his birth the Master replied
blandly that he was never born!

Writing a biographical note on Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is a
frustrating and unrewarding task. For, not only the exact date
of his birth is unknown, but no verified facts concerning the
early years of his life are available. However, some of his
elderly relatives and friends say that he was born in the month
of March 1897 on a full moon day, which coincided with the
festival of Hanuman Jayanti, when Hindus pay their homage to
Hanuman, also named Maruti, the monkey-god of Ramayana fame. And
to associate his birth with this auspicious day his parents
named him Maruti.

Available information about his boyhood and early youth is
patchy and disconnected. We learn that his father, Shivrampant,
was a poor man, who worked for some time as a domestic servant
in Bombay and, later, eked out his livelihood as a petty farmer
at Kandalgaon, a small village in the back woods of Ratnagiri
district of Maharashtra. Maruti grew up almost without
education. As a boy he assisted his father in such labours as
lay within his power -- tended cattle, drove oxen, worked in the
fields and ran errands. His pleasures were simple, as his
labours, but he was gifted with an inquisitive mind, bubbling
over with questions of all sorts.

His father had a Brahmin friend named Vishnu Haribhau Gore, who
was a pious man and learned too from rural standards. Gore often
talked about religious topics and the boy Maruti listened
attentively and dwelt on these topics far more than anyone would
suppose. Gore was for him the ideal man -- earnest, kind and
wise.

When Maruti attained the age of eighteen his father died,
leaving behind his widow, four sons and two daughters. The
meagre income from the small farm dwindled further after the old
man’s death and was not sufficient to feed so many mouths.
Maruti’s elder brother left the village for Bombay in search of
work and he followed shortly after. It is said that in Bombay he
worked for a few months as a low-paid junior clerk in an office,
but resigned the job in disgust. He then took petty trading as a
haberdasher and started a shop for selling children’s clothes,
tobacco and hand-made country cigarettes. This business is said
to have flourished in course of time, giving him some sort of
financial security. During this period he got married and had a
son and three daughters.

Childhood, youth, marriage, progeny -- Maruti lived the usual
humdrum and eventless life of a common man till his middle age,
with no inkling at all of the sainthood that was to follow.
Among his friends during this period was one Yashwantrao
Baagkar, who was a devotee of Sri Siddharameshwar Maharaj, a
spiritual teacher of the Navnath Sampradaya, a sect of Hinduism.
One evening Baagkar took Maruti to his Guru and that evening
proved to be the turning point in his life. The Guru gave him a
mantra and instructions in meditation. Early in his practice he
started having visions and occasionally even fell into trances.
Something exploded within him, as it were, giving birth to a
cosmic consciousness, a sense of eternal life. The identity of
Maruti, the petty shopkeeper, dissolved and the illuminating
personality of Sri Nisargadatta emerged.

Most people live in the world of self-consciousness and do not
have the desire or power to leave it. They exist only for
themselves; all their effort is directed towards achievement of
self-satisfaction and self-glorification. There are, however,
seers, teachers and revealers who, while apparently living in
the same world, live simultaneously in another world also -- the
world of cosmic consciousness, effulgent with infinite
knowledge. After his illuminating experience Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj started living such a dual life. He conducted his shop,
but ceased to be a profit-minded merchant. Later, abandoning his
family and business he became a mendicant, a pilgrim over the
vastness and variety of the Indian religious scene. He walked
barefooted on his way to the Himalayas where he planned to pass
the rest of his years in quest of a eternal life. But he soon
retraced his steps and came back home comprehending the futility
of such a quest. Eternal life, he perceived, was not to be
sought for; he already had it. Having gone beyond the
I-am-the-body idea, he had acquired a mental state so joyful,
peaceful and glorious that everything appeared to be worthless
compared to it. He had attained self-realisation.

Uneducated though the Master is, his conversation is enlightened
to an extraordinary degree. Though born and brought up in
poverty, he is the richest of the rich, for he has the limitless
wealth of perennial knowledge, compared to which the most
fabulous treasures are mere tinsel. He is warm-hearted and
tender, shrewdly humorous, absolutely fearless and absolutely
true -- inspiring, guiding and supporting all who come to him.

Any attempt to write a biographical not on such a man is
frivolous and futile. For he is not a man with a past or future;
he is the living present -- eternal and immutable. He is the
self that has become all things.

Translator’s Note

I met Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj some years back and was impressed
with the spontaneous simplicity of his appearance and behaviour
and his deep and genuine earnestness in expounding his
experience.

However humble and difficult to discover his little tenement in
the back lanes of Bombay, many
have found their way there. Most of them are Indians, conversing
freely in their native language, but there were also many
foreigners who needed a translator. Whenever I was present the
task would fall to me. Many of the questions put and answers
given were so interesting and significant that a tape-recorder
was brought in. While most of the tapes were of the regular
Marathi-English variety, some were polygot scrambles of several
Indian and European languages. Later, each tape was deciphered
and translated into English.

It was not easy to translate verbatim and at the same time avoid
tedious repetitions and reiterations. It is hoped that the
present translation of the tape-recordings will not reduce the
impact of this clear- minded, generous and in many ways an
unusual human being.

A Marathi version of these talks, verified by Sri Nisargadatta
Maharaj himself, has been separately published.

Maurice Frydman Translator Bombay
October 16, 1973

Editor’s Note

The present edition of I AM THAT is a revised and re-edited
version of the 101 talks that appeared in two volumes in earlier
editions. Not only the matter has now been re-set in a more
readable typeface and with chapter headings, but new pictures of
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj have been included and the appendices
contain some hitherto unpublished valuable material.

I draw special attention to the reader to the contribution
entitled ‘Nisarga Yoga’, in which my esteemed friend, the late
Maurice Frydman, has succinctly presented the teaching of
Maharaj. Simplicity and humility are the keynotes of his
teachings, as Maurice observes. The Master does not propound any
intellectual concept or doctrine. He does not put forward any
pre-conditions before the seekers and is happy with them as they
are. In fact Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj is peculiarly free from
all disparagement and condemnation; the sinner and the saint are
merely exchanging notes; the saint has sinned, the sinner can be
sanctified. It is time that divides them; it is time that will
bring them together. The teacher does not evaluate; his sole
concern is with ‘suffering and the ending of suffering’. He
knows from his personal and abiding experience that the roots of
sorrow are in the mind and it is the mind that must be freed
from its distorting and destructive habits. Of these the
identification of the self with its projections is most fatal.
By precept and example Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj shows a
short-cut, a-logical but empirically sound. It operates, when
understood.

Revising and editing of I AM THAT has been for me a pilgrimage
to my inner self -- at once ennobling and enlightening. I have
done my work in a spirit of dedication, with great earnestness.
I have treated the questions of every questioner as mine own
questions and have imbibed the answers of the Master with a mind
emptied of all it knew. However, in this process of what may be
called a two-voiced meditation, it is possible that at places I
may have failed in the cold-blooded punctiliousness about the
syntax and punctuation, expected of an editor. For such lapses,
if any, I seek forgiveness of the reader.

Before closing, I wish to express my heart-felt thanks to
Professor Douwe Tiemersma of the Philosophical Faculty Erasmus,
Universieit, Rottendam, Holland for contributing a new Foreword
to this edition. That he acceded to my request promptly makes me
feel all the more grateful.

Sudhakar S. Dikshit
Editor
Bombay, July 1981

1. The Sense of ‘I am’

Questioner: It is a matter of daily experience that on waking up
the world suddenly appears. Where does it come from?

Maharaj: Before anything can come into being there must be
somebody to whom it comes. All appearance and disappearance
presupposes a change against some changeless background.

Q: Before waking up I was unconscious.

M: In what sense? Having forgotten, or not having experienced?
Don’t you experience even when unconscious? Can you exist
without knowing? A lapse in memory: is it a proof of
non-existence? And can you validly talk about your own
non-existence as an actual experience? You cannot even say that
your mind did not exist. Did you not wake up on being called?
And on waking up, was it not the sense ‘I am’ that came first?
Some seed consciousness must be existing even during sleep, or
swoon. On waking up the experience runs: ‘I am -- the body -- in
the world.’ It may appear to arise in succession but in fact it
is all simultaneous, a single idea of having a body in a world.
Can there be the sense of ‘I am’ without being somebody or
other?

Q: I am always somebody with its memories and habits. I know no
other ‘I am’.

M: Maybe something prevents you from knowing? When you do not
know something which others know, what do you do?

Q: I seek the source of their knowledge under their instruction.

M: Is it not important to you to know whether you are a mere
body, or something else? Or, maybe nothing at all? Don’t you see
that all your problems are your body’s problems -- food,
clothing, shelter, family, friends, name, fame, security,
survival -- all these lose their meaning the moment you realise
that you may not be a mere body.

Q: What benefit is there in knowing that I am not the body?

M: Even to say that you are not the body is not quite true. In a
way you are all the bodies, hearts and minds and much more. Go
deep into the sense of ‘I am’ and you will find. How do you find
a thing you have mislaid or forgotten? You keep it in your mind
until you recall it. The sense of being, of 'I am' is the first
to emerge. Ask yourself whence it comes, or just watch it
quietly. When the mind stays in the 'I am' without moving, you
enter a state which cannot be verbalised but can be experienced.
All you need to do is try and try again. After all the sense ‘I
am’ is always with you, only you have attached all kinds of
things to it -- body, feelings, thoughts, ideas, possessions
etc. All these self-identifications are misleading. Because of
them you take yourself to be what you are not.

Q: Then what am I?

M: It is enough to know what you are not. You need not know what
you are. For as long as knowledge means description in terms of
what is already known, perceptual, or conceptual, there can be
no such thing as self-knowledge, for what you are cannot be
described, except as except as total negation. All you can say
is: ‘I am not this, I am not that’. You cannot meaningfully say
‘this is what I am’. It just makes no sense. What you can point
out as 'this' or 'that' cannot be yourself. Surely, you cannot
be 'something' else. You are nothing perceivable, or imaginable.
Yet, without you there can be neither perception nor
imagination. You observe the heart feeling, the mind thinking,
the body acting; the very act of perceiving shows that you are
not what you perceive. Can there be perception, experience
without you? An experience must ‘belong'. Somebody must come and
declare it as his own. Without an experiencer the experience is
not real. It is the experiencer that imparts reality to
experience. An experience which you cannot have, of what value
is it to you?

Q: The sense of being an experiencer, the sense of ‘I am’, is it
not also an experience?

M: Obviously, everything experienced is an experience. And in
every experience there arises the experiencer of it. Memory
creates the illusion of continuity. In reality each experience
has its own experiencer and the sense of identity is due to the
common factor at the root of all experiencer- experience
relations. Identity and continuity are not the same. Just as
each flower has its own colour, but all colours are caused by
the same light, so do many experiences appear in the undivided
and indivisible awareness, each separate in memory, identical in
essence. This essence is the root, the foundation, the timeless
and spaceless 'possibility' of all experience.

Q: How do I get at it?

M: You need not get at it, for you are it. It will get at you,
if you give it a chance. Let go your attachment to the unreal
and the real will swiftly and smoothly step into its own. Stop
imagining yourself being or doing this or that and the
realisation that you are the source and heart of all will dawn
upon you. With this will come great love which is not choice or
predilection, nor attachment, but a power which makes all things
love-worthy and lovable.

2. Obsession with the body

Questioner: Maharaj, you are sitting in front of me and I am
here at your feet. What is the basic difference between us?

Maharaj: There is no basic difference.

Q: Still there must be some real difference, I come to you, you
do not come to me.

M: Because you imagine differences, you go here and there in
search of ‘superior’ people.

Q: You too are a superior person. You claim to know the real,
while I do not.

M: Did I ever tell you that you do not know and, therefore, you
are inferior? Let those who invented such distinctions prove
them. I do not claim to know what you do not. In fact, I know
much less than you do.

M: I know nothing about it all and see no difference between you
and me. My life is a succession of events, just like yours. Only
I am detached and see the passing show as a passing show, while
you stick to things and move along with them.

Q: What made you so dispassionate?

M: Nothing in particular. It so happened that I trusted my Guru.
He told me I am nothing but myself and I believed him. Trusting
him, I behaved accordingly and ceased caring for what was not
me, nor mine.

Q: Why were you lucky to trust your teacher fully, while our
trust is nominal and verbal?

M: Who can say? It happened so. Things happen without cause and
reason and, after all, what does it matter, who is who? Your
high opinion of me is your opinion only. Any moment you may
change it. Why attach importance to opinions, even your own?

Q: Still, you are different. Your mind seems to be always quiet
and happy. And miracles happen round you.

M: I know nothing about miracles, and I wonder whether nature
admits exceptions to her laws, unless we agree that everything
is a miracle. As to my mind, there is no such thing. There is
consciousness in which everything happens. It is quite obvious
and within the experience of everybody. You just do not look
carefully enough. Look well, and see what I see.

Q: What do you see?

M: I see what you too could see, here and now, but for the wrong
focus of your attention. You give no attention to yourself. Your
mind is all with things, people and ideas, never with yourself.
Bring yourself into focus, become aware of your own existence.
See how you function, watch the motives and the results of your
actions. Study the prison you have built around yourself by
inadvertence. By knowing what you are not, you come to know
yourself. The way back to yourself is through refusal and
rejection. One thing is certain: the real is not imaginary, it
is not a product of the mind. Even the sense ‘I am’ is not
continuous, though it is a useful pointer; it shows where to
seek, but not what to seek. Just have a good look at it. Once
you are convinced that you cannot say truthfully about yourself
anything except ‘I am’, and that nothing that can be pointed at,
can be yourself, the need for the ‘I am’ is over -- you are no
longer intent on verbalising what you are. All you need is to
get rid of the tendency to define yourself. All definitions
apply to your body only and to its expressions. Once this
obsession with the body goes, you will revert to your natural
state, spontaneously and effortlessly. The only difference
between us is that I am aware of my natural state, while you are
bemused. Just like gold made into ornaments has no advantage
over gold dust, except when the mind makes it so, so are we one
in being -- we differ only in appearance. We discover it by
being earnest, by searching, enquiring, questioning daily and
hourly, by giving one's life to this discovery.

3. The Living Present

Questioner: As I can see, there is nothing wrong with my body or
with my real being. Both are not of my making and need not be
improved upon. What has gone wrong is the ‘inner body’, call it
mind, consciousness, antahkarana, whatever the name.

Maharaj: What do you consider to be wrong with your mind?

Q: It is restless, greedy of the pleasant and afraid of the
unpleasant.

M: What is wrong with its seeking the pleasant and shirking the
unpleasant? Between the banks of pain and pleasure the river of
life flows. It is only when the mind refuses to flow with life,
and gets stuck at the banks, that it becomes a problem. By
flowing with life I mean acceptance -- letting come what comes
and go what goes. Desire not, fear not, observe the actual, as
and when it happens, for you are not what happens, you are to
whom it happens. Ultimately even the observer you are not. You
are the ultimate potentiality of which the all-embracing
consciousness is the manifestation and expression.

Q: Yet, between the body and the self there lies a cloud of
thoughts and feelings, which neither server the body nor the
self. These thoughts and feelings are flimsy, transient and
meaningless, mere mental dust that blinds and chokes, yet they
are there, obscuring and destroying.

M: Surely, the memory of an event cannot pass for the event
itself. Nor can the anticipation. There is something
exceptional, unique, about the present event, which the
previous, or the coming do not have. There is a livingness about
it, an actuality; it stands out as if illuminated. There is the
‘stamp of reality’ on the actual, which the past and the future
do not have.

Q: What gives the present that 'stamp of reality’?

M: There is nothing peculiar in the present event to make it
different from the past and future. For a moment the past was
actual and the future will become so. What makes the present so
different? Obviously, my presence. I am real for I am always
now, in the present, and what is with me now shares in my
reality. The past is in memory, the future -- in imagination.
There is nothing in the present event itself that makes it stand
out as real. It may be some simple, periodical occurrence, like
the striking of the clock. In spite of our knowing that the
successive strokes are identical, the present stroke is quite
different from the previous one and the next -- as remembered,
or expected. A thing focussed in the now is with me, for I am
ever present; it is my own reality that I impart to the present
event.

Q: But we deal with things remembered as if they were real.

M: We consider memories, only when they come into the present.
The forgotten is not counted until one is reminded -- which
implies, bringing into the now.

Q: Yes, I can see there is in the now some unknown factor that
gives momentary reality to the transient actuality.

M: You need not say it is unknown, for you see it in constant
operation. Since you were born, has it ever changed? Things and
thoughts have been changing all the time. But the feeling that
what is now is real has never changed, even in dream.

Q: In deep sleep there is no experience of the present reality.

M: The blankness of deep sleep is due entirely to the lack of
specific memories. But a general memory of well-being is there.
There is a difference in feeling when we say ‘I was deeply
asleep’ from ‘I was absent’.

Q: We shall repeat the question we began with: between life’s
source and life’s expression (which is the body), there is the
mind and its ever-changeful states. The stream of mental states
is endless, meaningless and painful. Pain is the constant
factor. What we call pleasure is but a gap, an interval between
two painful states. Desire and fear are the weft and warp of
living, and both are made of pain. Our question is: can there be
a happy mind?

M: Desire is the memory of pleasure and fear is the memory of
pain. Both make the mind restless. Moments of pleasure are
merely gaps in the stream of pain. How can the mind be happy?

Q: That is true when we desire pleasure or expect pain. But
there are moments of unexpected, unanticipated joy. Pure joy,
uncontaminated by desire -- unsought, undeserved, God-given.

M: Still, joy is joy only against a background of pain.

Q: Is pain a cosmic fact, or purely mental?

M: The universe is complete and where there is completeness,
where nothing lacks, what can give pain?

Q: The Universe may be complete as a whole, but incomplete in
details.

M: A part of the whole seen in relation to the whole is also
complete. Only when seen in isolation it becomes deficient and
thus a seat of pain. What makes for isolation?

Q: Limitations of the mind, of course. The mind cannot see the
whole for the part.

M: Good enough. The mind, by its very nature, divides and
opposes. Can there be some other mind, which unites and
harmonises, which sees the whole in the part and the part as
totally related to the whole?

Q: The other mind -- where to look for it?

M: In the going beyond the limiting, dividing and opposing mind.
In ending the mental process as we know it. When this comes to
an end, that mind is born.

Q: In that mind, the problem of joy and sorrow exist no longer?

M: Not as we know them, as desirable or repugnant. It becomes
rather a question of love seeking expression and meeting with
obstacles. The inclusive mind is love in action, battling
against circumstances, initially frustrated, ultimately
victorious.

Q: Between the spirit and the body, is it love that provides the
bridge?

M: What else? Mind creates the abyss, the heart crosses it.

4. Real World is Beyond the Mind

Questioner: On several occasions the question was raised as to
whether the universe is subject to the law of causation, or does
it exist and function outside the law. You seem to hold the view
that it is uncaused, that everything, however small, is
uncaused, arising and disappearing for no known reason
whatsoever.

Maharaj: Causation means succession in time of events in space,
the space being physical or mental. Time, space, causation are
mental categories, arising and subsiding with the mind.

Q: As long as the mind operates, causation is a valid law.

M: Like everything mental, the so-called law of causation
contradicts itself. No thing in existence has a particular
cause; the entire universe contributes to the existence of even
the smallest thing; nothing could be as it is without the
universe being what it is. When the source and ground of
everything is the only cause of everything, to speak of
causality as a universal law is wrong. The universe is not bound
by its content, because its potentialities are infinite; besides
it is a manifestation, or expression of a principle
fundamentally and totally free.

Q: Yes, one can see that ultimately to speak of one thing being
the only cause of another thing is altogether wrong. Yet, in
actual life we invariably initiate action with a view to a
result.

M: Yes, there is a lot of such activity going on, because of
ignorance. 'Would people know that nothing can happen unless the
entire universe makes it happen, they would achieve much more
with less expenditure of energy.

Q: If everything is an expression of the totality of causes, how
can we talk of a purposeful action towards an achievement?

M: The very urge to achieve is also an expression of the total
universe. It merely shows that the energy potential has risen at
a particular point. It is the illusion of time that makes you
talk of causality. When the past and the future are seen in the
timeless now, as parts of a common pattern, the idea of
cause-effect loses its validity and creative freedom takes its
place.

Q: Yet, I cannot see how can anything come to be without a
cause.

M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be
without a particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give
you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and
the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without
your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that
gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and
manifests itself as something tangible or conceivable. Thus is
created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real
world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our
desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner
and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond
the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?

M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo
at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to
create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and over eat,
you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such
contradictions and remove them -- your very seeing them will
make them go.

Q: Since my seeing the contradiction makes it go, is there no
causal link between my seeing and its going?

M: Causality, even as a concept, does not apply to chaos.

Q: To what extent is desire a causal factor?

M: One of the many. For everything there are innumerable causal
factors. But the source of all that is, is the Infinite
Possibility, the Supreme Reality, which is in you and which
throws its power and light and love on every experience. But,
this source is not a cause and no cause is a source. Because of
that, I say everything is uncaused. You may try to trace how a
thing happens, but you cannot find out why a thing is as it is.
A thing is as it is, because the universe is as it is.

5. What is Born must Die

Questioner: Is the witness-consciousness permanent or not?

Maharaj: It is not permanent. The knower rises and sets with the
known. That in which both the knower and the known arise and
set, is beyond time. The words permanent or eternal do not
apply.

Q: In sleep there is neither the known, nor the knower. What
keeps the body sensitive and receptive?

M: Surely you cannot say the knower was absent. The experience
of things and thoughts was not there, that is all. But the
absence of experience too is experience. It is like entering a
dark room and saying: 'I see nothing'. A man blind from birth
knows not what darkness means. Similarly, only the knower knows
that he does not know. Sleep is merely a lapse in memory. Life
goes on.

Q: And what is death?

M: It is the change in the living process of a particular body.
Integration ends and disintegration sets in.

Q: But what about the knower. With the disappearance of the
body, does the knower disappear?

M: Just as the knower of the body appears at birth, so he
disappears at death.

Q: And nothing remains?

M: Life remains. Consciousness needs a vehicle and an instrument
for its manifestation. When life produces another body, another
knower comes into being,

Q: Is there a causal link between the successive body-knowers,
or body-minds?

M: Yes, there is something that may be called the memory body,
or causal body, a record of all that was thought, wanted and
done. It is like a cloud of images held together

Q: What is this sense of a separate existence?

M: It is a reflection in a separate body of the one reality. In
this reflection the unlimited and the limited are confused and
taken to be the same. To undo this confusion is the purpose of
Yoga.

Q: Does not death undo this confusion?

M: In death only the body dies. Life does not, consciousness
does not, reality does not. And the life is never so alive as
after death.

Q: But does one get reborn?

M: What was born must die. Only the unborn is deathless. Find
what is it that never sleeps and never wakes, and whose pale
reflection is our sense of 'I'.

Q: How am I to go about this finding out?

M: How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind
and heart in it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance.
To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of
success. You come to it through earnestness.

Q: Do you mean to say that mere wanting to find out is enough?
Surely, both qualifications and opportunities are needed.

M: These will come with earnestness. What is supremely important
is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not
be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel;
behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity,
wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the
conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit
will bring you to your goal.

Q: Tenacity and honesty are endowments, surely! Not a trace of
them I have.

M: All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All
blessings come from within. Turn within. 'l am' you know. Be
with it all the time you can spare, until you revert to it
spontaneously. There is no simpler and easier way.

6. Meditation

Questioner: All teachers advise to meditate. What is the purpose
of meditation?

Maharaj: We know the outer world of sensations and actions, but
of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little.
The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and
familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach
the source of life and consciousness.

Incidentally practice of meditation affects deeply our
character. We are slaves to what we do not know; of what we know
we are masters. Whatever vice or weakness in ourselves we
discover and understand its causes and its workings, we overcome
it by the very knowing; the unconscious dissolves when brought
into the conscious. The dissolution of the unconscious releases
energy; the mind feels adequate and become quiet.

Q: What is the use of a quiet mind?

M: When the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure
witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and
stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the
two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining
oneself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but
only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with
the witness snaps.

Q: As I can make out, I live on many levels and life on each
level requires energy. The self by its very nature delights in
everything and its energies flow outwards. Is it not the purpose
of meditation to dam up the energies on the higher levels, or to
push them back and up, so as to enable the higher levels to
prosper also?

M: It is not so much the matter of levels as of gunas
(qualities). Meditation is a sattvic activity and aims at
complete elimination of tamas (inertia) and rajas (motivity).
Pure sattva (harmony) is perfect freedom from sloth and
restlessness.

Q: How to strengthen and purify the sattva?

M: The sattva is pure and strong always. It is like the sun. It
may seem obscured by clouds and dust, but only from the point of
view of the perceiver. Deal with the causes of obscuration, not
with the sun.

Q: What is the use of sattva?

M: What is the use of truth, goodness, harmony, beauty? They are
their own goal. They manifest spontaneously and effortlessly,
when things are left to themselves, are not interfered with, not
shunned, or wanted, or conceptualised, but just experienced in
full awareness, such awareness itself is sattva. It does not
make use of things and people -- it fulfils them.

Q: Since I cannot improve sattva, am I to deal with tamas and
rajas only? How can I deal with them?

M: By watching their influence in you and on you. Be aware of
them in operation, watch their expressions in your thoughts,
words and deeds, and gradually their grip on you will lessen and
the clear light of sattva will emerge. It is neither difficult,
nor a protracted process; earnestness is the only condition of
success.

7. The Mind

Questioner: There are very interesting books written by
apparently very competent people, in which the illusoriness of
the world is denied (though not its transitoriness). According
to them, there exists a hierarchy of beings, from the lowest to
the highest; on each level the complexity of the organism
enables and reflects the depth, breadth and intensity of
consciousness, without any visible or knowable culmination. One
law supreme rules throughout: evolution of forms for the growth
and enrichment of consciousness and manifestation of its
infinite potentialities.

Maharaj: This may or may not be so. Even if it is, it is only so
from the mind’s point of view, but In fact the entire universe
(mahadakash) exists only in consciousness (chidakash), while I
have my stand in the Absolute (paramakash). In pure being
consciousness arises; in consciousness the world appears and
disappears. All there is is me, all there is is mine. Before all
beginnings, after all endings -- I am. All has its being in me,
in the ‘I am’, that shines in every living being. Even not-
being is unthinkable without me. Whatever happens, I must be
there to witness it.

Q: Why do you deny being to the world?

M: I do not negate the world. I see it as appearing in
consciousness, which is the totality of the known in the
immensity of the unknown.

What begins and ends is mere appearance. The world can be said
to appear, but not to be. The appearance may last very long on
some scale of time, and be very short on another, but ultimately
it comes to the same. Whatever is time bound is momentary and
has no reality.

Q: Surely, you see the actual world as it surrounds you. You
seem to behave quite normally!

M: That is how it appears to you. What in your case occupies the
entire field of consciousness, is a mere speck in mine. The
world lasts, but for a moment. It is your memory that makes you
think that the world continues. Myself, I don't live by memory.
I see the world as it is, a momentary appearance in
consciousness.

M: Abstraction is mental and verbal and disappears in sleep, or
swoon; it reappears in time; I am in my own state (swarupa)
timelessly in the now. Past and future are in mind only -- I am
now.

Q: The world too is now.

M: Which world?

Q: The world around us.

M: It is your world you have in mind, not mine. What do you know
of me, when even my talk with you is in your world only? You
have no reason to believe that my world is identical with yours.
My world is real, true, as it is perceived, while yours appears
and disappears, according to the state of your mind. Your world
is something alien, and you are afraid of it. My world is
myself. I am at home.

Q: If you are the world, how can you be conscious of it? Is not
the subject of consciousness different from its object?

M: Consciousness and the world appear and disappear together;
hence they are two aspects of the same state.

Q: In sleep I am not, and the world continues.

M: How do you know?

Q: On waking up I come to know. My memory tells me.

M: Memory is in the mind. The mind continues in sleep.

Q: It is partly in abeyance.

M: But its world picture is not affected. As long as the mind is
there, your body and your world are there. Your world is
mind-made, subjective, enclosed within the mind, fragmentary,
temporary, personal, hanging on the thread of memory.

Q: So is yours?

M: Oh no. I live in a world of realities, while yours is of
imagination. Your world is personal, private, unshareable,
intimately your own. Nobody can enter it, see as you see, hear
as you hear, feel your emotions and think your thoughts. In your
world you are truly alone, enclosed in your ever-changing dream,
which you take for life. My world is an open world, common to
all, accessible to all. In my world there is community, insight,
love, real quality; the individual is the total, the totality --
in the individual. All are one and the One is all.

Q: Is your world full of things and people as is mine?

M: No, it is full of myself.

Q: But do you see and hear as we do?

M: Yes, l appear to hear and see and talk and act, but to me it
just happens, as to you digestion or perspiration happens. The
body-mind machine looks after it, but leaves me out of it. Just
as you do not need to worry about growing hair, so I need not
worry about words and actions. They just happen and leave me
unconcerned, for in my world nothing ever goes wrong.

8. The Self Stands Beyond Mind

Questioner: As a child fairly often I experienced states of
complete happiness, verging on ecstasy: later, they ceased, but
since I came to India they reappeared, particularly after I met
you. Yet these states, however wonderful, are not lasting. They
come and go and there is no knowing when they will come back.

Maharaj: How can anything be steady in a mind which itself is
not steady?

Q: How can I make my mind steady?

M: How can an unsteady mind make itself steady? Of course it
cannot. It is the nature of the mind to roam about. All you can
do is to shift the focus of consciousness beyond the mind.

Q: How is it done?

M: Refuse all thoughts except one: the thought 'I am'. The mind
will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance
it will yield and keep quiet. Once you are quiet, things will
begin to happen spontaneously and quite naturally without any
interference on your part.

Q: Can I avoid this protracted battle with my mind?

M: Yes, you can. Just live your life as it comes, but alertly,
watchfully, allowing everything to happen as it happens, doing
the natural things the natural way, suffering, rejoicing -- as
life brings. This also is a way.

Q: Well, then I can as well marry, have children, run a
business… be happy.

M: Sure. You may or may not be happy, take it in your stride.

Q: Yet I want happiness.

M: True happiness cannot be found in things that change and pass
away. Pleasure and pain alternate inexorably. Happiness comes
from the self and can be found in the self only. Find your real
self (swarupa) and all else will come with it.

Q: If my real self is peace and love, why is it so restless?

M: It is not your real being that is restless, but its
reflection in the mind appears restless because the mind is
restless. It is just like the reflection of the moon in the
water stirred by the wind. The wind of desire stirs the mind and
the 'me', which is but a reflection of the Self in the mind,
appears changeful. But these ideas of movement, of restlessness,
of pleasure and pain are all in the mind. The Self stands beyond
the mind, aware, but unconcerned.

Q: How to reach it?

M: You are the Self, here and now Leave the mind alone, stand
aware and unconcerned and you will realise that to stand alert
but detached, watching events come and go, is an aspect of your
real nature.

Q: What are the other aspects?

M: The aspects are infinite in number. Realise one, and you will
realise all.

Q: Tell me something that would help me.

M: You know best what you need!

Q: I am restless. How can I gain peace?

M: For what do you need peace?

Q: To be happy.

M: Are you not happy now?

Q: No, I am not.

M: What makes you unhappy?

Q: I have what I don’t want, and want what I don’t have.

M: Why don’t you invert it: want what you have and care not for
what you don’t have?

Q: I want what is pleasant and don’t want what is painful.

M: How do you know what is pleasant and what is not?

Q: From past experience, of course.

M: Guided by memory you have been pursuing the pleasant and
shunning the unpleasant. Have you succeeded?

Q: No, I have not. The pleasant does not last. Pain sets in
again.

M: Which pain?

Q: The desire for pleasure, the fear of pain, both are states of
distress. Is there a state of unalloyed pleasure?

M: Every pleasure, physical or mental, needs an instrument. Both
the physical and mental instruments are material, they get tired
and worn out. The pleasure they yield is necessarily limited in
intensity and duration. Pain is the background of all your
pleasures. You want them because you suffer. On the other hand,
the very search for pleasure is the cause of pain. It is a
vicious circle.

Q: I can see the mechanism of my confusion, but I do not see my
way out of it.

M: The very examination of the mechanism shows the way. After
all, your confusion is only in your mind, which never rebelled
so far against confusion and never got to grips with it. It
rebelled only against pain.

Q: So, all I can do is to stay confused?

M: Be alert. Question, observe, investigate, learn all you can
about confusion, how it operates, what it does to you and
others. By being clear about confusion you become clear of
confusion.

Q: When I look into myself, I find my strongest desire is to
create a monument, to build something which will outlast me.
Even when I think of a home, wife and child, it is because it is
a lasting, solid, testimony to myself.

M: Right, build yourself a monument. How do you propose to do
it?

Q: It matters little what I build, as long as it is permanent.

M: Surely, you can see for yourself that nothing is permanent.
All wears out, breaks down, dissolves. The very ground on which
you build gives way. What can you build that will outlast all?

Q: Intellectually, verbally, I am aware that all is transient.
Yet, somehow my heart wants permanency. I want to create
something that lasts.

M: Then you must build it of something lasting. What have you
that is lasting? Neither your body nor mind will last. You must
look elsewhere.

Q: I long for permanency, but I find it nowhere.

M: Are you, yourself, not permanent?

Q: I was born, I shall die.

M: Can you truly say you were not before you were born and can
you possibly say when dead: ‘Now I am no more’? You cannot say
from your own experience that you are not. You can only say ‘I
am’. Others too cannot tell you ‘you are not’.

Q: There is no ‘I am’ in sleep.

M: Before you make such sweeping statements, examine carefully
your waking state. You will soon discover that it is full of
gaps, when the min blanks out. Notice how little you remember
even when fully awake. You just don’t remember. A gap in memory
is not necessarily a gap in consciousness.

Q: Can I make myself remember my state of deep sleep?

M: Of course! By eliminating the intervals of inadvertence
during your waking hours you will gradually eliminate the long
interval of absent-mindedness, which you call sleep. You will be
aware that you are asleep.

Q: Yet, the problem of permanency, of continuity of being, is
not solved.

M: Permanency is a mere idea, born of the action of time. Time
again depends of memory. By permanency you mean unfailing memory
through endless time. You want to eternalise the mind, which is
not possible.

Q: Then what is eternal?

M: That which does not change with time. You cannot eternalise a
transient thing -- only the changeless is eternal.

Q: I am familiar with the general sense of what you say. I do
not crave for more knowledge. All I want is peace.

M: You can have for the asking all the peace you want.

Q: I am asking.

M: You must ask with an undivided heart and live an integrated
life.

Q: How?

M: Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless.
Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve
it.

Q: Surely everybody deserves peace.

M: Those only deserve it, who don't disturb it.

Q: In what way do I disturb peace?

M: By being a slave to your desires and fears.

Q: Even when they are justified?

M: Emotional reactions, born of ignorance or inadvertence, are
never justified. Seek a clear mind and a clean heart. All you
need is to keep quietly alert, enquiring into the real nature of
yourself. This is the only way to peace.

9. Responses of Memory

Questioner: Some say the universe was created. Others say that
it always existed and is for ever undergoing transformation.
Some say it is subject to eternal laws. Others deny even
causality. Some say the world is real. Others -- that it has no
being whatsoever.

Maharaj: Which world are you enquiring about?

Q: The world of my perceptions, of course.

M: The world you can perceive is a very small world indeed. And
it is entirely private. Take it to be a dream and be done with
it.

Q: How can I take it to be a dream? A dream does not last.

M: How long will your own world last?

Q: After all, my little world is but a part of the total.

M: Is not the idea of a total world a part of your personal
world? The universe does not come to tell you that you are a
part of it. It is you who have invented a totality to contain
you as a part. In fact all you know is your own private world,
however well you have furnished it with your imaginations and
expectations.

Q: Surely, perception is not imagination!

M: What else? Perception is recognition, is it not? Something
entirely unfamiliar can be sensed, but cannot be perceived.
Perception involves memory.

Q: Granted, but memory does not make it illusion.

M: Perception, imagination, expectation, anticipation, illusion
-- all are based on memory. There are hardly any border lines
between them. They just merge into each other. All are responses
of memory.

Q: Still, memory is there to prove the reality of my world.

M: How much do you remember? Try to write down from memory what
you were thinking, saying and doing on the 30th of the last
month.

Q: Yes, there is a blank.

M: It is not so bad. You do remember a lot -- unconscious memory
makes the world in which you live so familiar.

Q: Admitted that the world in which I live is subjective and
partial. What about you? In what kind of world do you live?

M: My world is just like yours. I see, I hear, I feel, I think,
I speak and act in a world I perceive, just like you. But with
you it is all, with me it is nothing. Knowing the world to be a
part of myself, I pay it no more attention than you pay to the
food you have eaten. While being prepared and eaten, the food is
separate from you and your mind is on it; once swallowed, you
become totally unconscious of it. I have eaten up the world and
I need not think of it any more.

Q: Don’t you become completely irresponsible?

M: How could I? How can I hurt something which is one with me.
On the contrary, without thinking of the world, whatever I do
will be of benefit to it. Just as the body sets itself right
unconsciously, so am I ceaselessly active in setting the world
right.

Q: Nevertheless, you are aware of the immense suffering of the
world?

M: Of course I am, much more than you are.

Q: Then what do you do?

M: I look at it through the eyes of God and find that all is
well.

Q: How can you say that all is well? Look at the wars, the
exploitation, the cruel strife between the citizen and the
state.

M: All these sufferings are man-made and it is within man's
power to put an end to them. God helps by facing man with the
results of his actions and demanding that the balance should be
restored. Karma is the law that works for righteousness; it is
the healing hand of God.

10. Witnessing

Questioner: I am full of desires and want them fulfilled. How am
I to get what I want?

Maharaj: Do you deserve what you desire? In some way or other
you have to work for the fulfilment of your desires. Put in
energy and wait for the results.

Q: Where am I to get the energy?

M: Desire itself is energy.

Q: Then why does not every desire get fulfilled?

M: Maybe it was not strong enough and lasting.

Q: Yes, that is my problem. I want things, but I am lazy when it
comes to action.

M: When your desire is not clear or strong, it cannot take
shape. Besides, if your desires are personal, for your own
enjoyment, the energy you give them is necessarily limited; it
cannot be more than what you have.

Q: Yet, often ordinary persons do attain what they desire.

M: After desiring it very much and for a long time. Even then,
their achievements are limited.

Q: And what about unselfish desires?

M: When you desire the common good, the whole world desires with
you. Make humanity's desire your own and work for it. There you
cannot fail.

Q: Humanity is God’s work, not mine. I am concerned with myself.
Have I not the right to see my legitimate desires fulfilled?
They will hurt no one. My desires are legitimate. They are right
desires, why don’t they come true?

M: Desires are right or wrong according to circumstances; it
depends on how you look at them. It is only for the individual
that a distinction between right and wrong is valid.

Q: What are the guide-lines for such distinction? How am I to
know which of my desires are right and which are wrong?

M: In your case desires that lead to sorrow are wrong and those
which lead to happiness are right. But you must not forget
others. Their sorrow and happiness also count.

Q: Results are in the future. How can I know what they will be?

M: Use your mind. Remember. Observe. You are not different from
others. Most of their experiences are valid for you too. Think
clearly and deeply, go into the entire structure of your desires
and their ramifications. They are a most important part of your
mental and emotional make- up and powerfully affect your
actions. Remember, you cannot abandon what you do not know. To
go beyond yourself, you must know yourself.

Q: What does it mean to know myself? By knowing myself what
exactly do I come to know?

M: All that you are not.

Q: And not what I am?

M: What you are, you already are. By knowing what you are not,
you are free of it and remain in your own natural state. It all
happens quite spontaneously and effortlessly.

Q: And what do I discover?

M: You discover that there is nothing to discover. You are what
you are and that is all.

Q: I do not understand!

M: It is your fixed idea that you must be something or other,
that blinds you.

Q: How can I get rid of this idea?

M: If you trust me, believe when I tell you that you are the
pure awareness that illuminates consciousness and its infinite
content. Realise this and live accordingly. If you do not
believe me, then go within, enquiring ‘What am I’? Or, focus
your mind on ‘I am’, which is pure and simple being.

Q: On what my faith in you depends?

M: On your insight into other people’s hearts. If you cannot
look into my heart, look into your own.

Q: I can do neither.

M: Purify yourself by a well-ordered and useful life. Watch over
your thoughts, feelings, words and actions. This will clear your
vision.

Q: Must I not renounce everything first, and live a homeless
life?

M: You cannot renounce. You may leave your home and give trouble
to your family, but attachments are in the mind and will not
leave you until you know your mind in and out. First thing first
-- know yourself, all else will come with it.

Q: But you already told me that I am the Supreme Reality. Is it
not self-knowledge?

M: Of course you are the Supreme Reality! But what of it? Every
grain of sand is God; to know it is important, but that is only
the beginning.

Q: Well, you told me that I am the Supreme Reality. I believe
you. What next is there for me to do?

M: I told you already. Discover all you are not. Body, feelings,
thoughts, ideas, time, space, being and not-being, this or that
-- nothing concrete or abstract you can point out to is you. A
mere verbal statement will not do -- you may repeat a formula
endlessly without any result whatsoever. You must watch yourself
continuously -- particularly your mind -- moment by moment,
missing nothing. This witnessing is essential for the separation
of the self from the not-self.

Q: The witnessing -- is it not my real nature?

M: For witnessing, there must be something else to witness. We
are still in duality!

Q: What about witnessing the witness? Awareness of awareness?

M: Putting words together will not take you far. Go within and
discover what you are not. Nothing else matters.

"If you want peace of mind, do not find fault with others. Rather see your own faults. Learn to make the whole world your own. No one is a stranger. The whole world is your own."
"The result of Karma is inevitable. But by repeating the Name of God, you can lessen its intensity. If you were destined to have a wound as wide as a ploughshare, you will get a pin-prick at least. The effect of Karma can be counteracted to a great extent by Japa and austerities."Sarada DeviGospel of Holy Mother Sarada Devi